For the two-part season premiere of the popular Fox television show “Glee,” the series’ producers have chosen to showcase the time-tested music of the Beatles. As with “American Idol” and “The Voice” before them, the creators of “Glee” know a thing or two about turning the ratings knob for their vast teen and pre-teen viewing […]
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From the Penn State Laureate: Remembering the Restaurant at the End of the World
In April 2009, Congress designated Sept. 11 as Patriot Day and as a National Day of Service and Remembrance. And while most Americans have little difficulty recalling precisely where they were and what they were doing on that terrible morning in 2001, the fate of the restaurateurs in the Windows on the World complex atop […]
50 Years of Beatles: “I Want to Hold Your Hand” Propelled Band in U.S.
As pop-music masterworks go, the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” is one of the most ambitious, self-conscious compositions in the fabled Lennon-McCartney songbook. It would also be the classic tune that would alter the group’s fortunes across the globe. Originally written after manager Brian Epstein urged the band to aspire for a distinctly […]
Getting Back
THE CONVOLUTED EVENTS OF JANUARY 1969 CONTINUE TO ECHO AS SOME OF THE MOST DRAMATIC AND LEAST UNDERSTOOD MOMENTS IN THE BEATLES’ MIND-BOGGLINGLY SUCCESSFUL CAREER. AND NO ALBUM IS MORE ASSOCIATED WITH THE GROUP’S BREAKUP THAN LET IT BE. The convoluted events of January 1969 continue to echo as some of the most dramatic and […]
Ten Great Beatles Moments
1. ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ (1963) The first track on the Beatles’ inaugural album, Please Please Me (1963), ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ explodes with a sense of urgency and abandon equaled only by the opening strains of ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand,’ the song that would prefigure the group’s triumphant first visit to North […]